‘It’s time to stop the bully': Adbusters editor Kalle Lasn on Occupy Wall Street, the Israel lobby and the New York Times

Kalle Lasn in front of the Adbuster’s corporate flag of America. (Photo: Globus)

When the Occupy Wall Street protests began to attract attention in the fall, everyone wanted to know where the idea to set up a permanent protest at the heart of Manhattan’s financial district came from. The answer was the mind of Kalle Lasn, the co-editor (along with Micah White) of the anti-consumerist “culture jamming” magazine Adbusters. It was Adbusters, calling for an American “Tahrir moment,” that originally put out the call to occupy Wall Street on September 17.

But not all the attention Lasn and his magazine received was positive, though. It was the New York Times coverage of Adbusters and Lasn’s role in the Occupy movement that caused him the most grief by smearing them as anti-Semitic.

“For me, the New York Times is really important right now, because it was one of the most ugly experiences of my year, where they took a couple of quick swipes at my magazine and me personally,” Lasn told Mondoweiss in a recent phone interview. “I have such huge respect for the New York Times and I subscribe to it and I’ve been reading it every morning for the last ten years of my life.”

Mondoweiss recently caught up with Lasn for an extended interview with the sixty-nine year old activist to discuss Occupy Wall Street, Palestine, the Israel lobby and more.

Alex Kane: Tell me about yourself, I’ve read some, but details about your life and what you’re doing at Adbusters.

Kalle Lasn: Well, I don’t think my history’s all that fascinating, but I think the really fascinating thing about Adbusters magazine and what I’m doing right now is this Occupy movement that we helped to spark a couple of months ago and the possibilities for where this movement could—the possibility it could fizzle out, but it could also blossom into this powerful kind of force on the political left that could change not just the way we think about financial speculators and fat cats on Wall Street, but all kinds of arenas as well, including the political and foreign policy arenas. So, yeah, that’s sort of the big thing in my life right now, just thinking about that and trying to infuse our magazine and our website and our tactical briefings with this spirit of this youthful revolt that the Occupy movement represents.

AK: How do you see Adbusters’ role in the Occupy movement?

The call to occupy Wall Street from Adbusters

KL: Well you know, we were the people who were lucky enough to sort of spark the whole thing just at the right moment with some of the posters we came up with and that hashtag Occupy Wall Street [#occupywallstreet], choosing that magical date, September 17th, that seemed to absolutely be the right moment. When a movement is ripe, then all it takes is one spark, and I think that spark did happen on September the 17th, and after that of course, the movement started to have a life of its own, and all we’ve really been doing is churning out our tactical briefings and trying to, to the extent that it’s possible, to sort of have influence on a movement like this, to infuse our Adbusters’ tactical ideas into the movement and trying to keep our finger in the pie, so to speak.

“The United States of Amnesia”

KL: Let me enlarge the conversation a little bit. I think one of the interesting things about this Occupy movement is that I think it will come back, after hibernating for the winter, it will come back next spring and it will get involved in more than just economics. It will start playing around with politics and possibly launching third political parties and all kinds of political energy will come out of this movement. And one of the arenas that I think it may have some influence on is this—kind of a, what Adbusters long ago started calling the United States of Amnesia—this fact that most of the people in America actually aren’t getting the information that they need to make wise decisions about foreign policy and political matters. I think from my perspective, it seems like American political thinking is being distorted by a number of bubbles, and one of those bubbles is that AIPAC bubble, which is a very powerful, probably the most powerful lobby in America, and it has the power to intimidate politicians and get them to never say anything negative about Israel, and it’s got to the point where even the president of the United States is intimidated by this lobby and forced to do all kinds of things that he wouldn’t normally do.

I think another one of the bubbles is a media bubble, because there’s a special sensitivity to this issue, and the Holocaust, and it’s such an emotionally charged thing, and I think the media is quite often pro-Israeli in a knee-jerk way. For example, when Ehud Barak visited the United States of America last week, he went on the Charlie Rose Show, and with Fareed Zakaria, and he basically blitzed the media, and he left the impression that somehow it would be absolutely perfectly okay for us to attack Iran. Some of the other ways of looking at it—like this idea that Israel also has nukes, and that maybe a smarter strategy would be to fight for a nuclear-free Middle East rather than bomb the hell out of Iran, and some of the historical nuances about American CIA involvement back there a long time ago that started this unholy business that has been unfolding these past 30, 40, 50 years—those things were completely missing from the media. And then even newspapers like the New York Times, which is one of the great newspapers of the world, has Ethan Bronner and Isabel Kershner, a couple of their main people who write about the Middle East and Israeli/Palestine matters, and these two people are so obviously biased in favor of Israel, that it’s really disheartening to see the New York Times not mixing it up a little bit more and allowing more of a Palestinian perspective into what they write.

And David Brooks had a quick swipe at Adbusters, and then Joseph Berger took an even more vicious anti-Semitic swipe at Adbusters, and when we wrote them back a letter demanding a right of reply, they wouldn’t even print it, because we weren’t just talking about Ethan Bronner and Isabel Kershner and David Brooks, but we actually pointed out in our letter that the New York Times has got an anti-Palestinian bias to it, and they didn’t want to run that letter, I don’t know why. I hope you can phone them up and ask them. I did send an envelope to everybody at the New York Times giving them this back and forth e-mail exchange that I had fighting for my right of reply.

So there’s an AIPAC bubble, there’s a media bubble, but I think one of the even more powerful bubbles that exists in America in addition, is what I call the neocon bubble, and this is a very powerful, quite often very highly pro-Israeli bunch of intellectuals who have sort of been keeping all of us on our toes and they were instrumental in pushing a lot of policies, very heavily pro-Israeli policies, they were instrumental in pushing for the Iraq War and now they’re also instrumental in pushing for an attack on Iran. We have three big bubbles in America, and this is what we here at Adbusters have been kind of fighting against for the last 15 years.

AK: Right. It’s interesting, because what connects all those bubbles, really, is a devotion to Israel. But the article that David Brooks and Commentary criticized Adbusters for was pointing out the very simple fact that many neoconservatives are Jewish, and it’s a sensitive subject for many reasons obviously. But what are your thoughts on how all these questions relate to Jewish privilege and influence in the United States?

Logo of the Adbusters right of reply campaign

KL: Well, I’m not quite sure what you’re asking here, I mean, as I pointed out in my right of reply letter, David Brooks wrote an article last year where he pointed out that x percent of Pulitzer Prize winners were Jewish, and he had sort of a litany of a half-dozen percentages that all pointed out how intellectually powerful and creative the Jewish people are. And in my right of reply letter, I wanted to ask David Brooks, well, if he can quote those percentages, then why can’t Adbusters point out that a percentage of the neocons are also Jewish?

But for me, I think the really big point is, that article we wrote—that was written seven years ago. It was a half-page article in a copy of Adbusters seven years ago, and it has caused us a lot of grief—grief because we were attacked for being anti-Semitic, because if you start defending yourself against anti-Semitism, I found, then it’s a losing proposition. It’s like defending yourself against rabies; it’s like defending yourself against smallpox. The more you defend yourself, the more excited you get about defending yourself against it, the more people think, well this is suspicious, maybe the guy does have rabies, maybe the guy does have smallpox, maybe he is anti-Semitic.

So defending yourself against anti-Semitism is really a game, and I played that game for the first few months, and years after that article came out, I always lost. So I’ve decided I’m not going to play that game anymore. I would like to now go on the offensive, and I would like to talk about AIPAC, and I’d like to talk about the New York Times and Ethan Bronner and Isabel Kershner and David Brooks, and I’d like to, above all, start popping these three bubbles. The people who feel that American foreign policy has been distorted by the neocons, by the media and by AIPAC, it’s time for us to stop arguing about it and start going on the offensive. Stop defending yourself and go on the offensive right now and start popping those three bubbles. And I’m hoping that a lot of people of like mind from this Occupy movement will move into this area, and we will be as aggressive as AIPAC, as aggressive as some of these neocons have been, and fighting back against them. What I’m saying is, we need a hashtag, #occupytheneocons, we need a hashtag, #occupyAIPAC.

AK: You said the charges of anti-Semitism caused you at Adbusters a lot of grief. Was this personal grief, was this professional grief? Obviously, the charge of anti-Semitism can be a powerful one, and it can be career wrecking for some people.

KL: Oh yeah, it has ruined a lot of careers. And it’s damaged many of them. I really sympathize with people like Norman Finkelstein and even President Carter, who dare to use words like apartheid, or who dare to speak back against these neocons, and suddenly found themselves vilified, they found themselves pilloried in the media, and so it is a very, very dangerous thing to stand up and speak the way that Adbusters and many other people have done, because it can be career destroying, for a politician it could mean you’re not going to get elected next time around, and it’s for a lot of people, it’s just like a lose-lose proposition. It takes a lot of courage, and I hope that from now on the political left will have more of that courage, because why we’ve been losing these political battles for so long, and why American foreign policy has been so distorted by the dual-loyalties of many neocons. It’s because we’re always on the defensive, we’re scared to go on the offensive and we’re scared to actually expose one by one these neocons and actually point out where their loyalties lie and so on. And we’re scared to really rabidly go after AIPAC because it’s such a huge, big opponent that can do us in. So yes, I think we need more courage on the political left.

AK: You live in Canada, correct?

KL: Yes.

AK: And you know, Palestine, when it comes up in the Occupy movement, in New York at least, there’s been some controversy about it—kind of the old dividing line in left and anti-war movements. Where you live—I know Canada has become extremely right-wing in its support for Israel—but is the discourse the same where you live, or is it different?

KL: I think it’s very similar. Especially right now, we have a prime minister who is very right-wing and the discourse is very, very similar, I think it’s kind of a North American discourse, and I don’t think there’s a huge different between the Canadian discourse and the U.S. discourse. It’s just very, very similar, and the situation here is the same. Like for example, when we published an article that Canadian Jewish groups here found disturbing or offensive, then they were instrumental in convincing the biggest magazine distributor in Canada to pull 3,000 issues of Adbusters and not to allow Adbusters to distribute our magazine in their hundreds of stores around Canada. So this is the sort of power they have and this is the grief that they can cause for people. Quite apart from some people getting offended and canceling their subscription, which is just par for the course when you run a magazine, but the Jewish lobby, the pro-Israeli lobby in Canada and the U.S., has this power to really make magazines like us pay a price for speaking back.

AK: What do you make of the fact that there has been controversy, at least some and obviously Palestine doesn’t play a big part in the Occupy movement, but the fact that there has been at least some online controversy about Palestine in the Occupy movement. What does that say to you?

KL: Oh, I haven’t thought too much about that, I don’t really think about stuff like that. I mean, for me, it’s a more simple kind of situation, I don’t really bother with smaller skirmishes. I mean, for me, it’s about Israel behaving badly, and it’s about the Palestinian freedom fight, which I really believe in. I believe that the Palestinian freedom fight is one of the great freedom fights of our time, and I want to support it in any way that I can.

AK: And you were saying before, as the Occupy movement expands, you want and you think and you’re interested in seeing whether the Occupy movements take on U.S. foreign policy. Can you talk more about that?

KL: You know, well, I think that the political left has been whining and complaining and being kind of useless, in the sense that the Berlin Wall fell back in 1989, and we basically have been very ineffectual. And here at Adbusters we have been saying for a long, long time that we have to jump over the dead body of the old left, and we’ve been trying to do that but now with this Occupy movement I think it is finally possible to jump over the dead body of the old left, and for some of these Young Turks who are coming out of the Occupy movement, for us to start having our own powerful, kind of a, intellectual group of people that can stand up to the neocons, and can infuse the American media with different perspectives than what we’re getting right now and we can sort of engage with AIPAC in a way where they don’t always win. So I think that many of the occupiers will not agree with me that the Palestinian freedom fight is one of the great freedom fights of all time and they should be supported, I mean they will have their own perspective, but I think, and do feel, that now that it’s kind of “cool” to be left again, there will be some powerful lefty political discourse starting to come out of this movement. And I think it has the power to start popping some of these bubbles that I’ve been talking about and giving the people of America more information to make wise decisions about whether we should support an attack on Iran, or whether we should cut off the money supply to the Palestinians, or whether we should allow Netanyahu to build more settlements, and stuff like that.

AK: I know you said your personal background wasn’t pertinent, but I was reading that you were born in Estonia. Is that correct?

KL: That’s correct. If you’re looking for some sort of, bit of a hint from my history for where I’m coming from, is that, yeah, I was born in Estonia and when the Russians came in my family caught the last [way] out and spent the next five years in various displaced persons’ camps in Europe and Germany, and I remember the first few years of my life were full of emotional, political discourse. I went to sleep every night listening to the adults argue about the Nazis and the Russians and so I’m a highly politicized human being right from the start. And I’ve always believed in, I’ve always taken the side of, I hate bullies. I hate bullies and I love freedom fights.

AK: How has that experience shaped your politics on Israel/Palestine?

KL: Yeah. When I see Israel acting so arrogant and so tough—here’s one of the most powerful military forces in the world, they have nukes—and when I see them cordoning off Gaza the way they do and when they attack Gaza the way they did, it just fills me with rage because this is a powerful bully that is basically turning Gaza into kind of a turkey shoot. I really see it in this kind of very visceral way, like how could they possibly get away with doing this? For me, it’s almost a very black and white battle where, let’s stop arguing about who’s right and who’s wrong, let’s just take sides and start fighting for the human rights and the other rights that the Palestinians should have, and let’s not allow the bully to always win. I mean, it’s time to stop the bully.

About Alex Kane

Alex Kane is a freelance journalist and graduate student at New York University's Near East Studies and Journalism programs. Follow him on Twitter @alexbkane.

232 Responses

Why this massive mobilisation against these not-yet-fully-articulated, unarmed, inchoate people? After all, protesters against the war in Iraq, Tea Party rallies and others have all proceeded without this coordinated crackdown. Is it really the camping? As I write, two hundred young people, with sleeping bags, suitcases and even folding chairs, are still camping out all night and day outside of NBC on public sidewalks – under the benevolent eye of an NYPD cop – awaiting Saturday Night Live tickets, so surely the camping is not the issue. I was still deeply puzzled as to why OWS, this hapless, hopeful band, would call out a violent federal response.
That is, until I found out what it was that OWS actually wanted.
The mainstream media was declaring continually “OWS has no message”. Frustrated, I simply asked them. I began soliciting online “What is it you want?” answers from Occupy. In the first 15 minutes, I received 100 answers. These were truly eye-opening.
The No 1 agenda item: get the money out of politics. Most often cited was legislation to blunt the effect of the Citizens United ruling, which lets boundless sums enter the campaign process. No 2: reform the banking system to prevent fraud and manipulation, with the most frequent item being to restore the Glass-Steagall Act – the Depression-era law, done away with by President Clinton, that separates investment banks from commercial banks. This law would correct the conditions for the recent crisis, as investment banks could not take risks for profit that create kale derivatives out of thin air, and wipe out the commercial and savings banks.
No 3 was the most clarifying: draft laws against the little-known loophole that currently allows members of Congress to pass legislation affecting Delaware-based corporations in which they themselves are investors.

That was Naomi Wolf seafoid, not Klein. Personally, i think wolf is full of shit. another bourgeois “personality” who is all about thrusting herself to the forefront of sht like the occupy “movement.”

I thought that article made little to no sense….wolf seems to be rooting for the occupy movement to take up electoral politics, which of course would mean they would need “professional advice” etc from the likes of her…..those kids aren’t getting beaten up because they might possibly challenge the inequities and corruption of the ruling class, they are getting beaten up because they refuse to cooperate with the ruling classes’ system. State violence is meant to intimidate and to channel the energy of the protestors into “acceptable” forms, like electoral politics. They’re getting beaten up for the exact opposite reasons Wolf cites. She’s a hack.

I completely disagree – and calling her a ‘hack’ based on your unconvincing explanation, is a bit suspect – it’s hard not to say..

‘those kids aren’t getting beaten up because they might possibly challenge the inequities and corruption of the ruling class, they are getting beaten up because they refuse to cooperate with the ruling classes’ system. State violence is meant to intimidate and to channel the energy of the protestors into “acceptable” forms, like electoral politics. They’re getting beaten up for the exact opposite reasons Wolf cites. She’s a hack.’

The fact is that state violence is used for a number of reasons – and one of them will certainly be -if it isn’at already – a refusal to ‘cooperate with the ruling class’ system’.

Why the hate on for Wolf and the glowing tribute for Klein – who is far from perfect too. Weird. Have you read or listened to any of Wolf’s other works, particularly on American facism?

Yes, I have. Klein is a scholar, Wolf is a post modern pseudo intellectual hack. I have no interest in going past my original declarative statement, many more “serious” people have said far worse about Wolf and her work……

Joshua Hollands smear piece on Wolf is WAY over the top. Reads like a left-wing hissy fit over oranges and tangerines. Get over it. There are VERY dark clouds hovering over America- that anyone would try to ‘debunk’ an article based on tone over some minor errors is, in my view, pathetic…

When a zionist FALSELY charges you with antisemitism, and you know you’re NOT a bigot, then to be sure you’re doing the right and GOOD thing.

Slurring others with the tag of ‘antisemitic’ is the last refuge of the criminal and desperate ziobots.

Ten years ago when I first started blogging (started on 12th sept 2001 uhuh!), I used to get very upset when occasionally a zionist supremist losing an argument would throw that mud ball at me. AND NOW I actually like it. Soon as the slur is uttered, I KNOW I’VE WON!

And more and more uninformed people, are now noticing how the zionists are always too quick to play the holocaust card and they don’t like it one bit.

That’s why you, having a media platform yourself, should just bounce it back at them – expose the racist buggers: name and shame the ‘canadian zionists’ who are trying to knee-cap your magazine for speaking the truth about their nefarious political activities. Yes I agree: the gameplan is to be on the OFFENSIVE.

Thanks Kalle for your work and thanks for loving a good old fashioned “freedom fight”.

Future historians will prove you right when you say: “I believe that the Palestinian freedom fight is one of the great freedom fights of our time”.

Their endurance and resolve against pretty much ALL ODDS and over such a long period of time, is truly breathtakingly Herculean and Sisyphusian at once.

I guarantee you that every human who has ever existed and come in contact with others,expresses bigotry in their mind.It’s acting on that bigotry that is the bad deed.
Shall we put a Citizenchip in every newborn to shock and awe his bigoted thoughts?
Let him without sin cast the first stone.
I bet even Jesus expressed bigotry,as when he overturned the moneylenders tables.We are human animals,not perfect gods.

Yeah, that’s my perspective now. If someone calls me an antisemite, or accuses me of it, I toss them in a heap. I used to lose sleep over it. Now I think of those accusers (after I’ve reexamined what I said to ascertain the truth for myself, or double-checked that I was heard correctly) as amygdala- propelled talking heads.

I quite agree. In the book by Ilan Pappe, Israeli historian, “The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestin,” he makes the point of the fact that even Palestinians refer to the ethnic cleansing as the “catastrophe”, or the “Nakba” relative weak terms that level no one responsible due to the Palestinians senstitivity to the Holocaust of the Jews. I only just began looking into the issue in detail in July 2010, when I came across a letter written by King Abdullah of Jordan in 1947 in The American Magazine, and there was not this angry Arab vitriol the Zionist promote by Israeli propaganda, as in the Palestinians left their lands to make way for the Arab horde armies to come after the Jews. Instead there was an appeal for reasonableness in the fact that a Jewish population of 7%, became 600,000 over running the indigenous peoples there in Palestine. I then was casual about learning more at that time, but came across a youtube video six months later by Representative Press proclaiming the reason for 9/11, which was the “unconditional, unequivocal, support for Israel.” And it showed how the 9/11 Congressional Commission told of that being the main reason for 9/11, which the Congressional Committee ignored, and another video in which Dan Rather in reading the script he was supposed to read, but hemmed and hawwed and left it out, that said those very words outlined above. Go to youtube, look it up. And since then, I have seen websites that are trying to tell the truth about the 1948 ethnic cleansing of Palestine, that continues to this day, I might add, in the occupied territories. ifamreicansknew.org showed me the statistics of the number of those killed in Israel, and the number of Palestinians who have died far outnumber the Israeli deaths. Israel likes to talk about the security it requires, and its retaliations against Hamas who shoot a few noisemaking rockets in comparison to the full arsenal Israel has used against Gaza. I’m finding Israel to be the bully who has his boot on your neck shouting look how you are hurting me, or the psychopath who murders someone and says, “look what you made me do.” I’m learning how the entire world has been complicit(with the exception of Middle Eastern countries who are called terrorists) in the denial of the history of the 1948, six month ethnic cleansing of Palestine. In 1917 British Foreign SecretaryLord Balfour gave the green light to the Zionists for their take over of the Palestinian lands, with the help of the British military in training the Hagana, which became the Jewish Agency, ultimately responsible for the enforcement of the ethnic cleansing, which resulted in 800,000 were uprotted, 531 villages destroyed, 11 urban neighborhoods emptied of their inhabitants, using the tactics of the systematic expulsion of the Palestinians from their land, and as in Cosovo, large scale intimidation, laying siege to and bombarding villages and population centers, stting fire to homes, demolitions, and setting mines in the rubble to discourage anyone from returning. This decision was made by 11 men, Zionists who coldly and calculatedly on March 10, 1948 , the decimation of a peoples. There were 33 massacres in 1948, of indigenous women, men and children, for whom rape, murder, torture were no beneath them, their Hagana Plan D, or Dalet, theybarely needed an excuse for their behavior, as some Palestinians objected but could not fight back as in 1937, their three year revolt was overrun and their leaders were killed, their paramilitary killed, and with nno one left to oppoes the Zionists, they killed a peoples hope of living free in their own land and even killed them physically, a population which in the 1920s had a 80-90% of a majority of the population of Palestine. The tears are preventing from going on, so I’ll stop here.

Actually thank you for bothering to read it, for it was a bit long, but I got started and couldn’t stop as I was so outraged at being lied to for so long by my own country’s press and political leaders. As I read more of Ilan Pappe’s book, my heart cries out and I can only go a few pages at a time, it is so unbelievable.

Thanks, annie. It did somewhat take my breath away, I was just really stymied, flummoxed, and hurt emotionally, it was so heartbreaking, that it could have taken place, what happened in 1948 to the Palestinians, intentially by militants who seemed to have lost all of their humanity, and all I could think of was a group similar, the Nazis! I can not keep what i’m learning quiet either so chances are people are going to take swipes at me, I’m sure, but so be it. If a person can stand up for what is right and true and withstand the monster attacks against her/him, then is the position they hold credible enough to take the abuse, I think, yes, I’ll hold my ground and stand up for the Palestinians, the downtrodden, accepting all the taunts to villify me, to make me an object of their hatred, to abuse me personally with their ad hominem attacks, then I welcome it.

Thank you, Taxi, for also bothering to read my post and as I delve more into it, I feel it is my duty as a human being to expose this big lie about Israeli actions taken, indeed planned and executed against the Palestinians in 1948, and continues this day with evictions of Palestinians, and Bedouins from occupied territories continues, and to stand up against the bullies that Lasn is talking about.
And for the oppressed Palestinians to refer to the cleansing as the “catastrophe,” and the “Nakba,” being sensitive and caring not to injure an already injured peoples, the Jews, by what happened in the Holocaust, says a lot about who they are as a people, they are not all as portrayed by Zionists, the terrible terrorists as they are referred to based on a few in the group who are much more militant, but are like many people, peaceful loving people.

Thanx john h, I appreciate it, on other sites hateful swipes are taken at me consistently for my similar comments as this, but I feel I am right in this matter, I really do. I sometimes feel so helpless trying to stand up for the Palestinians as I do, because of all the contrariness I receive. I just know that when you see an injustice being done, that to do nothing is to be complicit, and I have, on other issues involving suffering of others, stood up and gotten physically assaulted. The internet helps as a shield, sometimes, but being stalked(of which I have been a victim) for having a contrary viewpoint in one’s community is scary, but I won’t back down. July 2010 woke me up to this particular issue, and I was so upset at being lied to for decades. I think I have been asleep all these years, but the fact is I have been misled by the MSM and my own country, the good ole USofA.
There is a youtube video of a pregnant Palestinian woman who was stopped at a checkpoint and the IDF would not allow her to pass to go to the hospital, she was reportedly bleeding, telling the IDF that fact, and they still wouldn’t let her pass. What is wrong with these people?
I’m not sure when the video was shot, but it was uploaded Nov 21, 2007, and as far as I can tell not much has changed, especially after the building of the separation wall with all its numerous checkpoints where Palestinians are delayed for hours even if they are sick and going to the hospital. I also read the Goldstone report recently about Operation Cast Lead and I learned that to the Israeli military civilian targets are equal to so called military targets, they make no distinction. Israelis flouting of international law and the Geneva convention seems to be standard operating procedure for them(using phosphorous material in their ammunition, for one thing ).link to youtube.com
I am happy to join with others here and stand up for Palestinians and that includes joining with those Jewish folks who have not lost their humanity as the Zionists have and who also stand up for the Palestinians..

I sometimes feel so helpless trying to stand up for the Palestinians as I do, because of all the contrariness I receive. I just know that when you see an injustice being done, that to do nothing is to be complicit

Yeah, that is so right, and that is why the Western world stands condemned, because they have done nothing significant in nearly 100 years but have instead been complicit, sometimes in collusion, in the continuing Palestinian Nakba.

Like you, I cannot do nothing. Growing up I saw boys at school being bullied and did nothing. But as a teenager when I saw it I literally fought the bully even though I am a small person and not a natural fighter. It’s just who I am in the face of injustice; it moves me to tears and/or action!

When you’re accused of being an Anti-Semite by a bigot, why respond? BDS. There is no end to the invectives in my experience, just smile and move on. Show others there is no sting to it, anymore.
Hej! Tumta

excellent interview alex. i completely related to what he said about brooks article. it’s perfectly fine for him and the nyt to ‘count jews’ as long as you stay away from counting them in the media or politics as if those were not two areas in which they also excel (depending on how one defines ‘excel’). Lasn got pilloried for saying something everyone already knows and the objective was putting him on the defensive. well, good for him for determining to go on the offense instead. good for him.

it’s perfectly fine for him and the nyt to ‘count jews’ as long as you stay away from …

that is but one example of the occult tendencies of the current elite, jewish or gentile. it is permissible for the police to peer into every private crevice of your being, but if you attempt to film them in a public place, they break your camera or your face. it is permissible for google/facebook/etc. to mine and record details of your every communication, but don’t f*ck with eric schmidt’s privacy. david brooks can expound on the collective genius of jews, but don’t dare suggest that the collective he represents (to be clear, a tiny minority of people who identify themselves as ‘jewish’) may have negative qualities. they are like royalty. don’t ever look them in the eye. it’s just not done.

I’ve never read the Elders of Zion, nor do I have an interest in it – what I know of it is through reading bits and pieces from blogs that talk about it and so I think I know what the book’s about. And like, don’t it strike you folks that craven zionists are kinda imitating the behaviorism of the worst aspects of that loathsome book?

Why are they doing this to themselves, begs the question?

Post-holocaustal empowerment and a fierce unshakable sense of self-loathing?

not only that lysia, it’s simply the most effective potent silencing messaging they’ve got so they use it all the time. it’s much easier than arguing for ethnic nationalism/zionism. that’s why (imho) why the launched the anti zionism equals anti semitism hasbara campaign. they want to utilize it as much as possible to silence their critics.

“I would like to now go on the offensive, …. it’s time to stop the bully”

Damn right…Kalle is the man.
Offense, offense, offense.
There is too much ‘reacting’ to anti semite slurs. If you’re going to respond to theses cretins at all it should be specifically to beat them senseless with their own hypocrisy and expose the agenda behind their anti semite smear campaigns.
Don’t apologize, don’t explain, slay them with the facts.

Some Jews are neoconservatives. Some Jews were communists. Pointing out that there are many Jewish neoconservatives is antisemitic just like pointing out that many Jews were communist. What is the purpose of this highlighting except to generate hatred towards Jews?

The bogus argument that Phil advances is that Jews are inclined to be neocons because of their Zionist upraising. This is total hogwash given the wide support given by Jews to other ideologies.

I’m confused as to how pointing out that there were many Jews who were communists is anti-Semitic. Identity influences biography. Pointing to the identity of communists are neocons is automatically anti-Semitic?

Of course, intention is important. What is your purpose in highlighting that some neocons are Jews? How do you think this will help you fight neoconservatism? How does it help your position or argument?

highlighting that some ( i would say many) neocons are jewish is stating a fact. Another fact, probably worth highlighting is: Most Americans Are Not Jewish.

And sorry, eee, if I ( and I assume many on this thread wouldn’t mind “we” being used) dont care about your feelings when it comes to matters as important as US foreign policy and the continued attempted hi-jacking of it by the Neo-Cons. You got a problem with jewish americans using their positions of power to influence policy in a decidedly “pro israel” fashion, take it up with them. But shut the fuck up with the “its anti-semitic to mention ANYTHING about jews” This is from the same cat who talks about “the tribe” and the strong, undeniable affinity jews have for their shared history etc. – but I guess that all stops just at the moment when members of the “tribe” have the power to enact “pro-Israel” policies – at that moment, according to eee, they are just simply americans with a point of view…….give me a break.

What is your purpose in highlighting that some neocons are Jews? How do you think this will help you fight neoconservatism? How does it help your position or argument?

i can’t speak for alex but some people might get the impression an american jewish israel firster might have other reasons other than merely concern for america’s security to support israel. iow, be influenced by other concerns, like nationalist loyalty.

no different than pointing out an american christian zionist might support israel because they believe their messiah will come faster, or something. (iow, because of their religion)

Why would I think you (the “we” you refer to) care about my feelings? I am stating a simple fact, pointing out that some neocons are Jews without explaining why you are doing so is antisemitic.

If some Jews in the US are using their power in an illegal manner, use the full extent of the law to prosecute them. Otherwise, instead of whining and trying to peddle antisemitic memes, just organize and win the public argument. It is not as if the neocons are hiding.

When a Jewish American votes for the Democrats or the Republicans or is a neocon or a progressive, what does it matter if he is Jewish? What is your point. Why do you insist on pointing at the Jewish neocons and not the liberal neocons? What has Judaism to do at all with this argument?

You tell ‘em “eee”. Why, I can’t count the number of times that you have pointed out that Judaism is a God-centered religion, with no link to ethnicity, politics or anything like that!
“eee” listen, brudder you can’t trust these people around here. Next thing you know one of these anti-Semites will be making the case the the Jews are a “people” a “nation” with it’s own standards, morality, ways of being, and right to determine its internal affairs, and the relationship of Jews with the rest of the world! I know, “eee” you are (as you should be) aghast at the anti-Semitic presumption of those views. But I could link you to a hundred comment s espousing that view! A lot of them are by that vandal who stole your “handle”.

Judaism has got absolutely nothing to do with this argument. But are “we” really to just ignore the MAIN TENET neo-conservatism – fealty to Israel- in this discussion?
I am sure you would like to believe that non jewish americans, aside from the bat shit insane christian fascists, have this love for the state of Israel, but guess what eee: WE DON’T. “We” have gotten this shit shoved down our fucking throats, by, yes, a bunch of jewish right wingers who wouldn’t even spit on a regular american’s head if it was on fire.

Voting as an individual is a lot different than ganging up on people and browbeating them into getting what you want.

Funny that you put “jewish” and “liberal” on opposing sides, but very telling.

And just one more thing: its important, at least for me as a former Marine, to point out that many neo-cons are jewish, because they advocate war, war, war……Jews in the US are between 3-5% of the population – jews are less than one tenth of one percent of the US military. Yea, that fucking bothers me. Sending people to do what you won’t or can’t is what defines cowardice.
And yea, Im calling the jewish neo-cons cowards, I use my real name to post here and could give a F…..

“When a Jewish American votes for the Democrats or the Republicans or is a neocon or a progressive, what does it matter if he is Jewish? What is your point. Why do you insist on pointing at the Jewish neocons and not the liberal neocons? What has Judaism to do at all with this argument?”

I think that Dan is figuring out who to excommunicate as being Jews based on their political thoughts, like you did with Zionism.

Isn’t it obvious? It exposes Zionists and neoconservatives as people with dual loyalties. It forces them to pick a country (America or Israel) and say “this is the one I’m really loyal to.” It explodes the myth that putting Israel first somehow helps America too.

“am i being an A-hole? help me out with your post woody, i dont understand….”

Not at all Dan. I’m just poking fun at eee, an atheist who has no compulsion about saying who is or is not a Jew based on their political thoughts, but whose panties are all in knot because someone discussess which Americans are neocons.

OT here but the aforementioned pump actually exists in Red Hook, an upstate new york town, nearest to Bard College where a very young Bob spent a summer visiting as a performing musician. And yeah right there in the center of Red Hook town, there’s an old pump there that don’t work cuz the vandals did actually took the handle! I’ve seen it myself. Now an old thick rope is strung through four short poles to mark it and a civic sign quotes the famous Dylan lyric.

“Despite the Jewish and other religious allusions in his work, Dylan said in a 1966 interview with Playboy that he never really felt Jewish. “I don’t really consider myself Jewish or non-Jewish…I’m not a patriot to any creed. I believe in all of them and none of them”

But then he writes this:

Well, the neighborhood bully, he’s just one man,
His enemies say he’s on their land.
They got him outnumbered about a million to one,
He got no place to escape to, no place to run.
He’s the neighborhood bully.

The neighborhood bully just lives to survive,
He’s criticized and condemned for being alive.
He’s not supposed to fight back, he’s supposed to have thick skin,
He’s supposed to lay down and die when his door is kicked in.
He’s the neighborhood bully.

The neighborhood bully been driven out of every land,
He’s wandered the earth an exiled man.
Seen his family scattered, his people hounded and torn,
He’s always on trial for just being born.
He’s the neighborhood bully.

Well, he knocked out a lynch mob, he was criticized,
Old women condemned him, said he should apologize.
Then he destroyed a bomb factory, nobody was glad.
The bombs were meant for him.
He was supposed to feel bad.
He’s the neighborhood bully.

Well, the chances are against it and the odds are slim
That he’ll live by the rules that the world makes for him,
‘Cause there’s a noose at his neck and a gun at his back
And a license to kill him is given out to every maniac.
He’s the neighborhood bully.

He got no allies to really speak of.
What he gets he must pay for, he don’t get it out of love.
He buys obsolete weapons and he won’t be denied
But no one sends flesh and blood to fight by his side.
He’s the neighborhood bully.

Well, he’s surrounded by pacifists who all want peace,
They pray for it nightly that the bloodshed must cease.
Now, they wouldn’t hurt a fly.
To hurt one they would weep.
They lay and they wait for this bully to fall asleep.
He’s the neighborhood bully.

Every empire that’s enslaved him is gone,
Egypt and Rome, even the great Babylon.
He’s made a garden of paradise in the desert sand,
In bed with nobody, under no one’s command.
He’s the neighborhood bully.

Now his holiest books have been trampled upon,
No contract he signed was worth what it was written on.
He took the crumbs of the world and he turned it into wealth,
Took sickness and disease and he turned it into health.
He’s the neighborhood bully.

What’s anybody indebted to him for?
Nothin’, they say.
He just likes to cause war.
Pride and prejudice and superstition indeed,
They wait for this bully like a dog waits to feed.
He’s the neighborhood bully.

What has he done to wear so many scars?
Does he change the course of rivers?
Does he pollute the moon and stars?
Neighborhood bully, standing on the hill,
Running out the clock, time standing still,
Neighborhood bully.

Well Dylan’s one confused man. He actually praised rabbi kahane once. Shame he’s such a political idiot and spiritual sheep. I got no respect for him now, but I did used to once enjoy doing my housework to his music, truth be told.

Well Corporal EEE,
Most, if not all of the Iraq era Neocons are Jewish Zionists except for Francis F. and he’s long gone, but they’re certainly back! Don’t you think? There is no such thing as “neoconservatism”. You’re a Conservative or your not. World wide ethnic crusades are hardly conservative, not small government at all. Liberal Fascists. Yes, their not so liberal are they, many, if not most are just bought and paid for and the rest are fanatics? Bolton comes to mind.

I think we’re seeing the first wave of denial, the drone strikes on Iranian sites. Their easing us into it slowly, like the boiling frog. How long can the Iranians resist striking back? If these are drone strikes, at this pace how many weeks, months will it take before the Iranians reach their use it or lose it moment? Then Hillary can “obliterate them”.
Hej!

Speaking of Foreign Policy the website of that name has an article(sorry of the diversion) called End of the Argument, and talks about ethnic cleansing and how the world feels it has a responsibility to address it and he even gives it a meme R2P, and he gives a few examples, one problem, he never mentions the 1948 ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians. How odd, one of the best examples of and worst events incurred against a group of which he is writing about, he never mentions. GoFigure.

Nothing more or less than the inherent humor in a self-professed atheist like eee decideding who is or is not a member of a religious group, based on the political considerations which eee favors. That’s humor gold, right there.

“You actually think religious folks are less warlike in their attacks against folks who don’t think as they do. Not so.”

If I thought that and wished to say that, I would have said that. That I did not, you surely should conclude that your inference is misguided. As an atheist myself, I have no illusions about the moral positions and capabilities of religious people. Their crap stinks like everyone else’s.

Sorry, Woody for the misread. Maybe I’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer.:) eee is full of s**t no doubt. Perhaps I have not commented here long enough to get some of the nuances and commenters personalities down. I actuall thought you were attacking atheist itself, please forgive the misinterpretation, also with the warlike reference, seems I missed the point a bit, I thought you were making the implication, not stated explicitly, point that perhaps atheists were more aggressive.
Again, sorry.

the reason israel-firsters wince whenever the fact gets out that many neocons are jewish israel-firsters is because, knowing as they do that u.s.-backed israel’s occupation of palestine is why the arab/islamic world hates america, they suddenly get this gut-feeling, “oh my god, people start believing this and what’s going to happen to me?” certainly a valid fear, considering how much harm* to america has been wrought by the existence of the israel-firster’s entity.

*including, but not limited to 9/ll, not to mention the 1967 israeli attack on the u.s.s liberty

it is confusing, alex, as it regards zionism. it’s anti-semitic to point out that jewish-american zionists are jewish? it’s anti-semitic to point out that individuals who publicly identify themselves as ‘one-issue’ guys might work to advance their agenda? just bizarre.

Identifying people as just supporting “one-issue” is fair enough. But first, what is wrong with that? Is it illegal in the US? Phil for example is also a “one-issue” Jew. Second, you have to prove that the neocons in general are one-issue people. That is clearly not the case. They are conservative on a wide range of issues. Just read Kristol and Kagan.

Identifying people as just supporting “one-issue” is fair enough. But first, what is wrong with that? Is it illegal in the US? Phil for example is also a “one-issue” Jew. Second, you have to prove that the neocons in general are one-issue people.”…..eee

We don’t have to prove that neocons or ziocons are one issue people.
All we have to do is prove that for the leading Jewish/Zionist neocons of influence Israel trumps all other issues. And that has been done to death, the evidence could fill a 100 pages.

As for being a one issue zionist neo and ‘what is wrong’ with that— give me a dime for every time I’ve heard that argument. It goes like this…”Jews have a democratic right to ‘representation’ like everyone else…..AIPAC is like the NRA and any other lobby….the US and Israel are one and the same so what does it matter…..our supporting Israel is really protecting America….it’s different for Jews because of our persecution……and on.

All of it delusional, some innocent , some deliberate.

The same as if Russian Israelis were to demand Israel concessions to Russia, hold loyalty to old homeland Russia, form a lobby to press their congress to funnel Israeli taxpayers billions in aid to Russia, vote based on what is good for Russia, claim Russia and Israel are one and the same, insist Netanyahu and their leaders do whatever Russia wants.

No non Russian Israelis would put up with this, they shouldn’t and would be right in opposing it. I can’t think of any people in any country who would or should let major policies in their country be dictated by a group with a half or whole baked ‘unconditional loyalty’ to a foreign country.

And no eee …..don’t even start with the why should Israel listen to the US or anyone else on I/P…..that is an entirely different horse.

Well Phil,
Is he out of here now? You have many, many issues? Good luck. Tell him to put up or shut up or take a hike. I still think you need an ignore button, let your readers decide. Then you don’t have to? Perhaps, you could provide stats on the most ignored posters. I’d be interested as I might be one of them. It would help me on current American orientation.
Don’t want to be the last person beating the proverbial dead American horse?
Hej!
P.S. Kristol and Kagan? Are you joking?

You miss the point: most leading neoconservatives are not simply Jews but *Jewish nationalists*. They are pushing a Jewish nationalist ideology (Likud Zionism, and often Jewish religious Zionism) in a highly aggressive and conspicuous way. They themselves, especially in the leading journal of neoconservatism (Commentary Magazine), have been pushing Jewish nationalist issues to the front and center of American political discourse for decades now.

Their explicit agenda is fair game for open debate in American politics in precisely the same way that the explicit agenda of Christian Zionists is fair game for open debate. We do not challenge Christian Zionists because they are Christians, but because they are a highly aggressive and extreme faction of Christians who are promoting endless Mideast wars and often racist policies that are severely damaging the American interest.

Do you comprehend this important distinction or not? Neoconservatives who are militant Jewish nationalists need to take responsibility for their words and policies, including the Iraq War and the hysterical campaign to provoke a war against Iran. Why are you trying to protect them from honest scrutiny by recklessly throwing around the anti-Semitism smear?

It is you that is missing the point entirely. You can attack their ideologies, agendas and beliefs all you want. There is nothing antisemitc about that. But what do you gain when you try to count the number of Jews or point out the number of Jews except delve into antisemitism? What are you trying to achieve by that? Why does it even matter for the discussion?

“was david brooks delving into anti semitism when he was counting jews or is it only anti semitism when it’s political?”

It is only antisemitism when the intentions behind it are bad. That is why I am asking a serious question: What is the point you are trying to get across when you count how many neocons are Jews? How do you think it helps you? How does the number of neocon Jews fit in your arguments and what conclusions do you draw from it?

No, you continue to miss the point. The issue is not that Jewish neocons are Jewish — the issue is that they are militant Jewish *NATIONALISTS* and Likud Zionists whose political calculations revolve entirely around the Israeli interest and Israel’s never-ending conflicts with most of the world. They themselves have aggressively pushed their obsession with Jewish *NATIONALIST* issues to the front and center of American politics while claiming to speak for “the Jews” — all of them. Most Jews want nothing to do with them, but for some peculiar reason their voices are rarely heard in the mainstream media on these issues.

Take up your complaints about an alarming situation that is rapidly devolving into a world historical catastrophe with those are responsible for creating it. Don’t blame Americans for noticing what is actually going on. Don’t insult our intelligence.

You really are not willing to face the facts are you? Stating the “most neocons are Jewish” is antisemitic. Stating that the neocons are influenced by Jewish nationalistic ideology is fine, even if it is not really relevant to the essence of neoconservatism.

I feel like there is something outrageously crazy about this discussion with you. You generously grant us the privilege of challenging “their ideologies, agendas and beliefs” all we want. But in this case their ideology, agenda and beliefs are dominated entirely by Jewish ethno-religious nationalism. Their Jewishness is not merely germane to the discussion but absolutely central.

Can you imagine if IRA leaders complained about the fact that critics were taking note of their Irish nationalist agenda? If white nationalists complained about the fact that their critics were discussing their white nationalist agenda? They would be crazy to do so. But they are not that crazy. They take responsibility for who they are. They don’t tie themselves up in absurd intellectual knots in an effort to evade what is most obvious about themselves.

How many times would you guess that Jewish neoconservatives have mentioned the term “the Jews” in a declamatory and argumentative way in the lead journal of neoconservatism — Commentary? Shall we all pretend that we haven’t seen what is plainly before our eyes? Why do you continue to dig yourself into an ever deeper hole on this issue?

“I can’t speak for seanmcbride, but maybe it’s his belief that only people who reject the neocon ideology are real Jews and he’s excommunicating them, like you did with the non-Zionist Jews.”

I wouldn’t presume to judge who is or is not a real Jew. There are many strains in the Jewish tradition, from the ultra-nationalist and ultra-xenophobic to the ultra-universalist, with many grades of variation in between these two poles. I do, however, reserve the right to express agreement with those strains which conform with my own values and disagreement with those that don’t. I exercise this kind of judgment in evaluating all cultural and religious traditions, including Christianity and Islam.

I used to be a sort of Commentary conservative, by the way — until the ethnic nationalist din in that publication begin to hurt my head. I know a losing political movement when I see it. At some point it became clear to me (well before the Iraq War) that the neocons were born losers and on the road to perdition. They are in the grip of a mad passion from which they cannot escape. I try to pay attention to the smartest Jews I can find in the world, and as it turns out few of them are Likud Zionists or neoconservatives. They are not robotic tribal ranters. They are in possession of their rational faculties.

“You really are not willing to face the facts are you? Stating the “most neocons are Jewish” is antisemitic. Stating that the neocons are influenced by Jewish nationalistic ideology is fine, even if it is not really relevant to the essence of neoconservatism.”

Wrong. Most neoconservatives are Jewish nationalists who have pushed Jewish nationalist issues to the front and center of their political agenda. (Why do you keep sliding off the word “nationalist”? Do you understand what the term means? Do you have any familiarity with the history of ethnic nationalist movements over the last few centuries? Please try to respond to this point.)

Neoconservatism is essentially an arm of Jabotinskyite and Likud Zionism. These are plain facts. Why do you continue to deny them? Shall we take a walk through several decades of Commentary, the lead journal of neoconservatism, to prove the obvious? Most of the neocons make no effort to conceal their Jewish nationalist agenda — they shout it to the high heavens. Are you deaf?

“eee” says: “It is only antisemitism when the intentions behind it are bad.”

Ho-Kay! So clear! So natchrel!
Thanks “eee”, there’s that morning laugh which I find so therapeutic! And need we mention that only real Jews (Zionists) are qualified to judge those intentions. On the other hand, Zionists need not abide our questions, they are, like Caesar’s wife, above reproach. After all, they say they are doing it “for the Jews” which completely exempts them from any subterfuge, moral quandaries, or (God forgive me for even mentioning it) any hint of self-interest. Not to mention sheer stupidity.

don’t you mean stating the “most jews are neocons” is antisemitic? the assertion most neocons are jewish might be incorrect but why would it be anti semitic? neocolonialism, like zionism, is a political construct. people either are or they are not. do you think it is anti semitic to say ‘most american jews are democrats?’

The only one that was brave enough to answer the question for what purpose you are counting how many neocons are Jewish is American. All the rest are scared to tell the truth. So again, a simple challenge: Why does it help your position when you state that many neocons are Jews?

“Their Jewishness is not merely germane to the discussion but absolutely central.”

You don’t get it that what you are saying is crazy, do you? The IRA has the word “Irish” in its name. The neocon movement is NOT a Jewish movement. You are so prejudiced, that you are trying to make a non-Jewish movement Jewish.
Only in your mind is neoconservatism related to “Jewish ethno-religious nationalism”. Most Jewish ethno-religious nationalists are NOT neocons and there are many neocons who are not Jewish ethno-religious nationalists.

Your side has spent trillions and decades propagating that zionism=holocaust=jews=judaism and it’s backfiring on you now so don’t even start to cry me a (stolen) river!

Point is, when good jews do good you want trumpets and crumpets and cream in the name of zionism – but when bad jews do bad stuff and people wanna talk ’bout it, you wanna stuff everyone with ‘antisemitism’.

And the worst thing about it is that you ALWAYS feel entitled to propagandize and milk the arab=moslem=terrorist cow.

Uhuh payback’s your glass of milk gone sour!

Your guys are on your way down down down and a heckalotta people wanna talk ’bout it and there ain’t a trillion zillion accusations of antisemitism gonna stop the chattering classes from doing exactly THAT! And NO it ain’t antisemitic to call a bad jew, a bad jew – not ALL jews are oh so PERFECT like YOU eee – can we at least agree on that?! (heh heh)

If zionism had done any good to judaism or to America (let alone the middle east), then this thread woulda never have happened. Geddit???

These times we’re in, the Exposure and Decline of Zionism Time, that’s YOUR creation.

Or I should say a nightmare of your own making.

And don’t get me started on how many Apartheid israelis are ACTUALLY committing heinous crimes against the PALESTINIAN SEMITES on a daily basis!

Thank you for your thoughtful post. My post was more a dig at eee, in his recent and hilarious attempt to declare those Jews who don’t agree with his political position to not be Jews anymore. I should have simply pointed out that his position was, in sum and substance, little more than the No True Scotsman fallacy, but this was more fun.

eee, a thief is not a political construct. if i say most christian zionists are republicans is that bigoted because i am not a fan of republicans?

you’re spamming.

Since you are using the word “neocon” in a derogatory manner, then yes, stating that most neocons are Jews is antisemitic.

helllloooo….i never made that statement since i (personally) do not believe most neocons are jewish. i define a neocon as an adherent to the neocon political construct. i do think the vast majority of leading neocons are jewish and i think the neocon foreign policy for american was devised to support israel. and while we’re at it i also think it amounts to theft (your analogy).

“The only one that was brave enough to answer the question for what purpose you are counting how many neocons are Jewish is American. All the rest are scared to tell the truth. ”

Even when he’s dealing with a subject that directly expresses his bigoted mindset, he can’t help thinking that way. Because, of course, we are all alike, we all think the way he thinks we do and because his speculation regarding American’s statement tickles his pre-conceived prejudice, he’s convinced that it is a smoking gun. Too funny.

Your trash talk is always amusing. According to you and your ilk Zionism has been declining for 100 years. When an Arab leader gets as many standing ovations in the US Congress as Bibi did, let me know. Until then, you are free to form your fantasies.

“Why does it help your position when you state that many neocons are Jews?”

It helps our position(s) to identify the people and the real motivations and goals of those who are influencing US policies that are or might be bad for America (Americans), so the public understands exactly who and how and why some policies come about, can connect the dots to who profits or who gets hurt by certain policies. The public needs the facts so they do not get taken in by propaganda and untruths so they can effectively oppose these people in the court of public opinion. Whether it’s the Jewish Zios or WS players or Corp Polluters.

Am I to understand correctly that the single person here who is trying to defend neoconservatives from the charge that they are Israel-obsessed — which no knowledgeable person would deny — is an Israeli? Hilarious. Tell me I’ve misunderstood the reference to eee and occupied Palestine.

My “trash talk” is all you ever inspire in me and I know it rattles your nerves and so you know, I think I kinda enjoy that.

And I got a pretty good idea where you pulled that “100 years” number from uhuh and its a place that ain’t pretty at all.

Actually, like I stated before, I CELEBRATE the 29 standing ovations natanyahu got at congress as it signaled the PEAK of zionism. THE PEAK. And like I stated before, we all know that after the peak there’s a wotchamacallit? That’s right, a DECLINE. Of the HORRIBLE UGLY kind. We’re reading about it every day: more of my virgin-to-the-I/P-conflict American brothers and sisters are now asking questions about Apartheid israel and learning and getting pissed off at the grand zionist swindle.

“We just can’t sell zionism anymore” – now guess who said THAT you little Nakba denier wannabe middle easterner?

No eee I wouldn’t call you a ‘fantasist’ cuz that would mean you actually got an imagination. You got non of that fun stuff. All you got is brute occupation and swindle and theft and murder and Apartheid walls cutting you off from the rest of decent humanity. How tragic for you and your “ilk” that you’ve consigned your lives to a paranoid little temporary fortress.

Who cares if “most” neos are Jewish or not? It’s not about ‘who is the most’ among the neos.
It’s about who is ‘pushing’ what the most, who has the inside track with congress and the US government, and the biggest megaphone with which to mislead the US public on foreign policy– I/P, Israel, Iran, Turkey, Palestine, etc..
It appears to be the zio neos who do this most consistently, the other neo’s get distracted by other issues now and then, but the zio neos never falter for a second in their march for money and war for Israel.

You said, “If zionism had done any good to judaism or to America.” Define good? The Zionists revision of history and the world acceptance of that revision(except for the Middle Eastern countries who are all labeled terrorists, jsome, not all, of course, just for complaining of the Zionist ill treatment of their neighbors), and the historical denial of the 1948 ethnic cleansing even happening and continued in the occupied territories. Sadly, it has been “good” for them, they have co-opted an entire country, the strongest and with the most successful militaristic country in history who contributes $7 million dollars every day to their cause, the Israeli state who uses that money to subjugate an entire peoples, eviciting them from their own land and homes, and making laws that go against one group the Palestinians, the Arabs who can’t even ride a public bus. Go AIPAC, GO America may you both rot in hell, if there was one. I am not anti-semitic, I am anti-a**holeness.

israel-firsters of whatever religious/political persuasion pose a danger to america, so whether jewish, christian, buddhist, whatever, these israel-firsters need to be exposed as enemies of the rest of us americans. what’s more it’s the zionist’s insistence that their settler entity speaks for all jews that forces jewish anti-zionists to stand up & say “not in my/our name” otherwise, this false claim would put not just them, but us at risk. note that from zionism’s inception the one about a land without a people for a people without a land made it certain that jews everywhere might be implicated in zionism’s colonial venture. extricating ourselves from this trap is not only a duty, it’s proven to be a necessity.

” Pointing out that there are many Jewish neoconservatives is antisemitic”

Bull.
Pointing out that many neos are Jewish (Zio) is for the purpose of connecting the dots to their agenda for Israel in US policies.
In other words, making it plain that what they espouse is for Israel’s benefit, not the US.
I’ll have to consult some psychologist for the correct designation for whatever the non Jewish neo -war -monger’s are.
But for the well known Zio- neo’s it is 90% Israel.

At least you are not skirting the issue. You provide a reason for stating the ethnicity of some neocons:
“In other words, making it plain that what they espouse is for Israel’s benefit, not the US.”

So the cat is out of the bag. You all want to call Jewish Americans that are neocons “traitors” but are afraid to do so (except American). So by hinting at the ethnicity of neocons, you are trying to plant this idea without saying it.

But why stop at the neocons? Perhaps most American Jews are “traitors” because Israel is an important issue for them?

“Perhaps most American Jews are “traitors” because Israel is an important issue for them?….eee

Is this my cue where I am suppose to respond with denying most American Jews are traitors and go into some long winded explanation of some vr all to prove I’m not an anti semite and distract from the point? If so, screw it, water off a duck’s back.

Yea, I call Jews, zionist, semi zionist, whatever stripe they are, who say America and Americans have to ‘bend over and take it for Israel’ like Alterman said, traitors. I call people like former Mayor Koch who told US Jewish voters to “vote Israel and forget the US domestic issues” traitors. Just like I call Pollard a traitor. Their motivation is the same.

I don’t call the non Jewish Zionist Neos (except for the christian zealots) traitors because their ‘main’ motivation isn’t for benefiting the ‘foreign country of Israel’. Their motivation is they are FUBAR USA hubristic, imperialistic, ignorant, power mad lunatics. Just as dangerous but motivated by their concept of the US, not Israel.

I forgot to add the non Jewish zionist who sell out for zio campaign money, they are the biggest traitors …’gimme 30 pieces of silver and I’ll sic the almighty US blood and treasure on whoever you want ripped to shreds.’

eee the crux of the matter is Zionism, it is not whether one is a Jew or not – there has never been a decision taken by neocons that has been detrimental to Israel – in fact for the short run it has always been beneficial , one may be a conservative or a communist and these have a universal application, not so with Zionism. However being a Jew does not predispose one to instant Zionism at any cost, so one may be a Zionist and not a Jew or one may be a Jew and a Zionist. Look at the track record of neocons, find their writings and their works, and you will find all neocons are Zionist whether they are a Jews or not. The culprit is Zionism not being Jewish, nice try attempting to pinpoint Jews and not Zionism so that the antisemitism charge can stick eee – no dice though.

If you want to argue that most neocons are Zionists, you may as well argue that most neocons are humans. Since most Americans are Zionists, as reflected in the US Congress, why wouldn’t most neocons be Zionists?

This claim of yours that most Americans are “Zionists” no doubt gives you great comfort but it is far from the truth. I know many Americans and most of them think about “Zionism” or Israel not at all — they have much more important matters on their mind, mostly about getting along in the United States. They are vaguely sympathetic to Israel on the whole, but that sympathy is extremely thin. Most of them would turn on Israel in an instant if they felt that Israeli policies were damaging their vital interests. I really think your personal emotional biases are leading you to misread American politics.

eee, let me think about the last time i had an option on the ballot to vote for a non zionist. i was reading this morning ron paul was the top candidate in iowa and some pew study that said he was given 1/2 the air time as romney in the debates. without corporate sponsors it is hard to get on the ballot.

“So Americans consistently elect people that don’t represent them. Do you want anyone to believe that?”

LMAO. Just making that statement in a way which expresses incredulity demonstrates that you really have no idea what being an American is all about. No, most people in the US will say that their elected officials don’t represent them. They were elected by a small minority and their position are overwhelmingly reviled. Welcome to the our F’d up version of democracy.

“So Americans consistently elect people that don’t represent them. Do you want anyone to believe that?”….eee

LOL, yea I expect people to believe that…cause that’s what 80% of them say….to wit …” our only candidate choices are bad and worse” ….” lesser of two evils”….”congress doesn’t represent the American people” and on and on.
I don’t know how you coul miss what the majority has been saying…unless you are deaf.

You guys are either crazy or extremely lazy. Why is it so hard for you to organize and field candidates who support your views? If the American people will not get off their ass and participate in the political process, then they deserve what they get and have no right to complain. If there is no choice out there you like, create a choice. That is how democracy works.

“Is it against the law to run a non-Zionist in the US? Of course not. What exactly are you complaining about? Since you claim that there are many non-Zionists in the US, they obviously most have corporations and enough money to field a candidate.”

LMAO. Oh, the naivety of the ignorant, pontificating — all the way from occupied Palestine — on how to successfully run a candidacy in the USA.

eee, people are broke. if it didn’t cost hella money to run campaigns the rich donors would have no reason to pour money into campaigns. money talks. you’ve already advocated the way to fix this is to throw more money at it. competing with lobbies is expensive. do you also think most americans like our health care the way it is? is that what you think? because if that was the case insurance companies wouldn’t have lobbies.

Oh, you’re just demonstrating your ignorance of the USA again. People here are neither crazy nor lazy; they’re simply faced with two party system, in which both are beholden to a foreign devil of an ideology.

But when you say money talks, how do you explain that all the “money” is Zionist? You claim to have a huge support, why can’t you raise money? It is just not credible that all rich people are Zionists.

Can’t say I am surprised. Can’t say any many times I hear my locals around here say…”I love my country but I hate my government”..it’s become almost a chant. Granted a lot of them are conseratives, but at 9% that’s pretty much the whole political spectrum.

“People in Egypt are risking death and dying to get rid of a dictator and you cannot field a third candidate even in a congressional race? Who is stopping you except your weird excuses?”

False comparison.

And there is a fundamental difference between simply running as a candidate and running a successful campaign. And, again, the difference between the two is a matter of money, influence, and the structural challenges in the two-party system. You may get a headline or two by running as the candidate for the Rent Is Too Damn High Party, but you won’t get any influence without getting one or the other of the major parties to accept your issue. And right now, the Zios have an Alien-facehugger lock on both major parties.

Apparently eee you have some mild or moderate cognitive dissonance, no one is arguing the makeup of the American people or the representative body (which most Americans have no idea where their elected officials stand on most issues, because they voted for them on the “do you think he would be a good drinking buddy” basis). Humanity has nothing to do with Zionism in the grouping value (maybe you failed the test on set theory in your exams), neither does the American public have much true information in regard to what is transpiring between Israel and the Palestinians – and I do believe the old rule stands that informed decisions are the only ones worth having (if Americans were all told that they should be able to fly from birth many would not reach old age…). When you have these things straightened out or have sought out therapeutic help let me know.

You guys claim you have grass roots support. So, run a grass roots campaign. Get the multitudes that support you to come out vote. With social media and the internet, it should be easy. This blog itself claims a lot of traffic. Why not take advantage of that?

But no, all I get is excuses why you can’t do anything in the political arena. There is a simple explanation of course. You don’t have many supporters. That explains everything.

American support for Israel overall is exceedingly thin — as I mentioned to you before, most Americans in my experience barely think about Israel at all — they have much more important matters on their mind. It would take very little for Israel to fall through the ice in terms of American and European support.

Did you foresee the collapse of Israel’s relations with Turkey? I’ll wager not. Can you foresee now the collapse of Israel’s relations with Egypt? Probably not. You believe whatever makes you feel comfortable and which reinforces your ethnic nationalist agenda. This is how cult psychology works.

Yes, I in fact did foresee changes in Israeli relations with Turkey and Egypt. I am not gloating, just stating the obvious. You claim you have grass roots power, prove it. Cult psychology is to claim you have power and people really support you when you are nothing but a cult. And that is exactly how you are acting. You believe what suits your personal prejudices. You claim support for Israel is thin? Well then, break it. Don’t talk, do. You claim you have grass roots support? Prove it by getting political power.

Following are some of the Jewish *NATIONALISTS* who have aggressively pushed Jewish, Israeli and Zionist issues to the front and center of American political discourse. Do you really expect Americans to pretend not to notice which particular obsessions are driving their strident rhetoric in pursuit of policies that are bankrupting the United States and turning much of the world against us?

Do you have a problem with any of the names on this list? Many of them are prominent fixtures in the American mainstream media — it’s impossible to escape their perpetual hysterical din in one’s ears 24×7.

Do you know why many pro-Israel activists have turned me off? They repeatedly insult my intelligence. When you try to argue that Jewish nationalism isn’t the prime driver behind the agenda of most neoconservatives, you insult our intelligence. Why do you do it? Why?

I would be equally turned off by a perpetual din from Irish, German or British nationalists — but this is not the case, thank the good lord.

If you were smart, you would be advising Jewish neoconservatives and Likud Zionists to adopt a much lower profile in American politics. I still don’t understand why the Jewish community as a whole has permitted these extremists to hijack its political agenda and get away with speaking for “the Jews.” How has that happened? Future historians will be digging into this issue in depth — you can bank on it.

“When you try to argue that Jewish nationalism isn’t the prime driver behind the agenda of most neoconservatives, you insult our intelligence”

Your claim is ridiculous. Jewish nationalism isn’t the prime driver of neoconservatives. Bush is a Jewish nationalist? Rice? Cheyne? These are the people that put the neoconservative strategy into motion. Not “some Jews”.

“If you were smart, you would be advising Jewish neoconservatives and Likud Zionists to adopt a much lower profile in American politics.”

What an arrogant statement. Why shouldn’t these people adopt the profile they want to adopt? They should do whatever they think is effectual and legal to push their points across. And if you have a better argument than them, put it forward and win the public debate instead of trying to tell people to shut up. You don’t like freedom of speech?

“I still don’t understand why the Jewish community as a whole has permitted these extremists to hijack its political agenda and get away with speaking for “the Jews.””

Only in your mind are these people speaking as representatives of the Jewish community. They are voicing their own opinions and never has ONE of them claimed that Jews are all neocons or that even a majority are. Where is your proof?

Like all ethnic nationalists throughout world history, the neocons frame politics as a grand struggle between their entire ethnic group (often defined as a mystical or messianic collective) and the rest of the world. The titles of many Commentary articles scream out this theme relentlessly.

2. No serious student or scholar of neoconservatism would describe Bush, Cheney and Rice as “neoconservatives” — at best they were largely the tools and dupes of the neocons and their network of well-funded policy centers (propaganda factories), which have largely taken over the Republican Party. Bush refused to attack Iran (despite the urging of Norman Podhoretz) and Rice was perturbed by the ethnocentric character of Israel.

Bush is arguably a Christian Zionist (he invaded Iraq in a biblical war against Gog and Magog, according to Jacques Chirac) and Dick Cheney seems to be a war profiteer with no significant ideological beliefs that he can articulate. They are certainly not Commentary regulars. They were heavily egged on by real neocons in the mainstream media, especially at the New York Times and Washington Post, which were once considered to be “liberal” newspapers.

3. It’s perfectly legal for white nationalists to loudly push forward their agenda in the United States and in some European nations, but would you encourage them to do so? No one is suggesting that self-destructive neocons should be denied their right of free expression. But watch and see how that turns out. It’s going to turn into a real mess. The neocons are not “good for the Jews” — or for Americans.

Small and Kaplan are careful to disclaim any causal implications that might be drawn from their analysis: they are not saying that anti-Semitism produces opposition to Israel or that opposition to Israel produces anti-Semitism, only that the two attitudes will more often than not be found in the same individual: scratch an opponent of Israel and you are likely – 56 percent of the time – to find an anti-Semite. This does suggest that if opposition to Israel increases, there will be an increase in anti-Semitism because the population of the 56 percenters will be larger. Is this something Jews, even Jews living in the United States, should be apprehensive about?

The answer to that question will depend on whether you think that there is a meaningful distinction to be made between the “old” and the “new” anti-Semitism. Old anti-Semitism, according to Brian Klug of Oxford University, is based on a hostility to and fear of “the Jew” as an alien and demonic figure. In this ancient and much retailed story, Klug tells us, in an article in Catalyst magazine last year, subhuman Jews wander from country to country and “form a state within a state, preying on the societies in whose midst they dwell.” This is the anti-Semitism that came to full and disastrous flower in Nazi Germany.

The new anti-Semitism, in contrast, Klug continues, is rooted not in a hostility to “the Jew” as a vampire-like destroyer of cultures, but “in the controversial nature of the State of Israel and its policies.” As such, “it is not a mutation of an existing ‘virus,’ but a brand new ‘bug.’” That is to say, its origin is political rather than racial, and there is at least a chance that if its political source were removed – if Israel’s policies were to change – its force would abate.

So there you have two stories: anti-Semitism is on the rise and it’s time to get out those “Never Again” signs. Or, it’s not anti-Semitism in the old virulent sense, but a rational, if problematic, response by Middle East actors and their supporters in the West to what they see as “an oppressive occupying force”; don’t take it personally. I understand this second story, and appreciate its nuance, but I can’t bring myself to accept it, if only because I believe that the viral version of anti-Semitism is always capable of regaining its full and deadly form even when it is apparently dormant or weakened. All it needs is a pretext, and any pretext will do. If the Israeli-Palestinian conflict didn’t exist, it would attach itself to something else; but it does exist, and anti-Semitism couldn’t be happier.

I will not waste my time doing useless research. Of course people wrote “the Jews” in commentary magazine. How about you answer my simple challenge:
Only in your mind are these people speaking as representatives of the Jewish community. They are voicing their own opinions and never has ONE of them claimed that Jews are all neocons or that even a majority are. Where is your proof?

They are all zealous Jewish *nationalists*. Norman Podhoretz and Irving Kristol are the founding fathers of neoconservatism

How many prominent Irish *nationalists* in American politics and the mainstream media can you name? Any at all? Is Ireland a major topic of ugly debate and contention among Americans? Are Irish nationalists driving Americans into multi-trillion dollar losing wars on behalf of Ireland? Do you see the severity of the problem here? I am fully confident that you will find a way not to see the problem. Ethnic nationalists always believe that everyone in the world is the problem except themselves.

The moment you start accusing Jews of being traitors to America, you fall back to the old kind of antisemitism. The moment you start braying the well known “Jews take care of only their own interests” you are delving into old time antisemitism.

“see also, stanley fish in the NYT, with some bizarre analysis of the ‘new anti-semitism’:”

It is amazing to me that someone like Fish can — without seemingly any self-reflection whatsoever — write such a borderline incoherent thesis, without even once questioning the obvious logical fallacy at the heart of the matter. Stunning.

During the time communism was prevalent in the US, the list of the top ten would have been also mostly if not all Jewish. So what? What does it prove? Nothing. Neoconservatism like communism has nothing to do with ethnic Judaism and its ideology. Only your prejudiced mind is making a connection.

When has Podhertz or Kristol ever said they are speaking for the majority of the Jews? When did they say they represent Jews? Please, show me anyone on your list except Bibi who has said it (he has said it of course as PM of Israel).

“The moment you start accusing Jews of being traitors to America, you fall back to the old kind of antisemitism.”

What if the Jew in question was a traitor??? Or are Jews constitutionally incapable of treason??? How do you explain the Rosenbergs (or atleast Mr., if not Mrs.)? Pollard? Weren’t they Jews and traitors???

(Or, perhaps, in your sub-standard command of the English language, you omitted the “the” before the word “Jews,” a change which would radically alter your sentence’s meaning…)

My previous post was in regards to what Fish wrote in the NY Times.
Sean is saying that it matters in some way that most leading neocons are Jews. I ask first, why does it matter? And second, what does it show? Third, why is it a problem of the Jewish community that the top thinkers in neoconservatism are Jews? In short, why is the ethnicity of the people important at all to you guys?

Always amazing to me when a Zionist Jew, who professes to be so in touch with the horror and history of anti-Semitism, consistently tries to stop (what he considers) anti-Semitism by forbidding people to think that way, or say those things.
Demanding that people think and speak in certain ways, and condemning them if they don’t, is not one of the characteristics I ever think of when I think of the powerless and persecuted.
Never seems to occur to “eee” that people can say “yup, I’m an anti-semite, and what are you going to do about it” just to get rid of him, and not because they really are. That how they feel about him as a person might influence how they react to him as a Jew. But no, he’ll find that proposition ridiculous. Besides, it involves some personal responsibility. From which he, as a Jew, is exempt. Oh, I’ll let him explain it, I really can’t. Don’t worry, he will.
That maybe it might be incumbent upon him to do something so that people care whether they are anti-Semites never occurs to him. No, that would be weakness! Giving in to the Gentiles! So he does the opposite. So smart.
But gosh, I bet sociopathy is more fun when it’s a group thing! Nothing like standing and singing I’lltakeya all together.

“The moment you start braying the well known “Jews take care of only their own interests” you are delving into old time antisemitism.”

Let’s cut to the chase. Is there anything we can accuse a Jew or doing which would not be “old time antisemitism.”? I can’t think of a single thing that Jews, or a Jew hasn’t been accused of by anti-Semites. So that and the Holocaust adds up to moral and criminal immunity? Any statute of limitations on that, or do we just have it forever?

“The moment you start accusing Jews of being traitors to America, you fall back to the old kind of antisemitism. The moment you start braying the well known “Jews take care of only their own interests” you are delving into old time antisemitism.”

That’s why AIPAC is so rabid. Because when ordinary Americans start to put two and two together they are going to get real mad. People are going to have to take sides. Israel or the US.

“In short, why is the ethnicity of the people important at all to you guys?”

Okay, you got us there “eee”. As a Zionist, I guess you know perfectly well what a completely incidental factor in a person’s life ethnicity is. But I still don’t understand how all of humanity, with no ethnic considerations, will find refuge in Israel. It’s such a small place, you know?

Yes Mooser, that is exactly the point, just like the castigation of American Jews for so many communists being Jews was antisemitic, the same accusation in regards to neoconservatism is also antisemitic.

“In short, why is the ethnicity of the people important at all to you guys?”…eee

Well obviously eee because it’s of utmost importance to them and you.

Any group who has organized around their ethnic identity and also around a foreign interest has built in their own xenophobia in whatever country…particulary when they claim representation of their entire ethnic group.

Oh shoot, I forgot, you yourself don’t claim all Jews, only the ones that agree with you and Netanyahu…all the others are fish bait in your opinion. LOL

When has Podhertz or Kristol ever said they are speaking for the majority of the Jews?

LMAO. I thought that was your province as chief ex-communicator of wayward Jews. Your whole line of what I will, for pity’s sake, call “reasoning” is that Jews cease to be Jews if they don’t follow, agree with and support the dominant Israeli thought process which you seem to think you exemplify, and perhaps you do. You have been “counting Jews” more than anyone else I’ve ever heard bloviate on the issue; the only difference is that you ex-communicate anyone who calls himself a Jew but doesn’t support Israel. By that logic, then simply knowing that someone is a Jew (using the newly-minted eee quasi-halakhic standard) is a guarantee that one can know his or her political stance on Israel. It becomes in fact a tautology. You are simply hoisting yourself with your own petard.

“The moment you start braying the well known “Jews take care of only their own interests” you are delving into old time antisemitism.”

You really like to swing hot and cold on this, don’t you. You spent days and days here insisting that someone who called himself a Jew and DIDN’T put the interests of fellow Jews ahead of the interests of other human beings was not a “real” Jew. Now you are insisting that the very idea that you repeatedly clung to, despite the arguments here of other more rational voices, is actually an anti-semitic idea. So I take it you are admitting to being the biggest anti-semite in this neck of the woods for insisting that Jews can’t really be Jews if they don’t put the interests of other Jews first?

Or are you just certifiable and think that you can say one thing and be correct, but if anyone else repeats the same thing, or says that some Jews actually think the same way you do, they are anti-semites. See, this is where the slur gets laughable. You can say it with pride about “all (eee-certified) Jews” but no one else can say it as a criticism about some Jews. You can’t keep selling that as anti-semitism. People are only so gullible for so long, as someone said.

2. Regarding Michael Ledeen being nuts: isn’t that a prerequisite for being a hardcore neocon? (Ledeen is the guy who regularly conducts intimate conversations with the long-deceased James Angleton.)

3. Ken Adelman is going to score no points for regretting his leading role in helping to engineer the worst foreign policy disaster in American history (he predicted in the Washington Post that the Iraq War would be a “cakewalk”). Elizabeth Drew in the New York Review of Books reported that Adelman was an especially important influence on Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld:

BEGIN ARTICLE
AUTHOR Elizabeth Drew
TITLE The Neocons in Power
PUBLICATION The New York Review of Books
DATE June 12, 2003
BEGIN QUOTE
Feith is a protégé of Perle, and worked under him during the Reagan administration. Adelman, a friend of Perle, Wolfowitz, and Woolsey, is very close to Cheney and Rumsfeld. The Cheneys and the Adelmans share a wedding anniversary and celebrate it together each year; Adelman worked for Rumsfeld in three government positions, and the Adelmans have visited the Rumsfelds at their various homes around the country.
END QUOTE
END ARTICLE

But Elliott Abrams is probably more important than both Ledeen and Adelman.

Yup, the Wurmsers rank among the top 15 or 2o most influential neoconservatives. Altogether, there are approximately 100 neocons of notable significance, most of them connected to AEI, PNAC, JINSA, FDD, CSP, FPI, ECI, WINEP, Hudson Institute, Commentary, the Weekly Standard and similar incestuously connected outfits.

MEMRI is basically Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer with more polished manners. If MEMRI’s methods were applied to tracking and analyzing Jewish extremism, the neocons would howl that the project was a manifestation of virulent anti-Semitism.

So let’s see where we stand:
1) You have no answer to the question: When has Podhertz or Kristol ever said they are speaking for the majority of the Jews?
2) You have no answer regarding the analogy with communism
3) You seem to claim that any ethnic group that views itself as such can be judged by the actions of members of the group who don’t even claim to be talking for the group. Do you want this standard to be applied to Palestinians?

“Let’s get this clear. About 50% of Jews are in Israel. In my book a person who does not care about the future of half the Jewish community cannot be a Jew. ”

LMAO. And, of course, it is you, above all, who is the arbiter of what constitutes “car[ing] about the future of half the Jewish community.” Of course, you are right about this and those poor excommunicant Jews must be wrong. Because, after all, what delusion of papacy would be complete if you didn’t claim for yourself infallibility to go along with your power to excommunicate…

How many articles in Commentary have you read over the years? Approximately. I’ve read a few thousand. Have you read even ten Commentary articles? Can you cite them?

I’ve already pointed you to hundreds of Commentary articles which speak in grandiose, strident, chauvinistic and xenophobic terms about “the Jews” — all Jews as a kind mystical collective blob — but you are too intellectually lazy even to take a few minutes to scan them using Google. Most neocons do in fact often claim to speak for all Jews, and they often heap nasty verbal abuse on Jews who disagree with them, whom they dismiss as self-hating Jews, traitors to “the Jews,” or not Jews at all.

Do you realize that you are way over your head in discussions about Mideast politics on Mondoweiss? I don’t think you are bright enough to grasp that — thus you continue to embarrass yourself by wading into issues here that you know little about. You don’t *think* about these matters — you merely vent your ethnic nationalist emotions in a way that is *guaranteed* to alienate and turn off everyone on the planet who isn’t a member of your self-obsessed minuscule cult.

Regarding the Jewish role in Communism: do you understand that there is a vast difference between universalist and ethnic nationalist ideologies? Zionism is an ethnic nationalist ideology which *explicitly* frames itself as a *Jewish* movement — hence the discussion of Jewish issues is absolutely central to any investigation of neoconservatives, who, for the most part, are led by militant Jewish nationalists and Likud Zionists.

Blaming “the Jews” collectively for either communism or neoconservatism would *of course* be anti-Semitic — but no one is doing that here. Either you are a mediocre troll or you are cognitively dysfunctional when you keep trying to steer the discussion in that direction. Seriously: you come across as just plain creepy. You are not good for “the Jews,” Israel or Zionism.

You haven’t even begun to deal with the original and most basic questions that began this discussion. You are even unable to draw any distinctions between *Jews* and *Jewish nationalists*. One gets the impression that you don’t even understand what the term “nationalist” means.

So please focus on this point: do you believe that all Irish Americans are Irish ethnic nationalists? That all German Americans are German ethnic nationalists? That all American Jews and Jews worldwide are Jewish ethnic nationalists? It strikes me as obvious that this is not the case — most people are not ethnic nationalists — but apparently you believe that all members of the human race are nationalists for their respective ethnic identities. Is this the case? Why do you think this?

And an ancillary point: how many Irish nationalists have you noticed in American politics and the American mainstream media? Name a few. So far you haven’t named one.

Do you also believe that white nationalists in America and Europe should be as aggressive in promoting their agenda as Jewish nationalists? Yes or no?

Regarding where you are coming from: of which nation or nations are you a citizen? From which nation are you typing? Are you yourself a Jewish nationalist? Do you have any more authority to speak for “the Jews” than, say, Philip Weiss or Max Blumenthal? Do your pronouncements on Jewish matters deserve more respect or attention than those by, say, Albert Einstein?

If you have read so many Commentary articles what is the problem to quote ONE that shows that a neocon leader is speaking for all Jews? I have read several articles and never saw that. So why can’t you bring ONE quote to back your claim with basically is just a wrong impression you have.

Your arrogance is amazing. I was ten years in the IDF and have had access to material you will never have access in your life. I live in the middle east. Yet, you claim to know more about middle east politics than me. Oh well. To me you sound like prejudiced person who is trying to justify his prejudice by counting Jews.

As for your discussion of Jew in Communism, again you got it wrong. Zionism is an ideology and as such is neither Jewish or gentile. You are conflating between Zionist ideology and the Zionist movement which is based on the ideology which is mostly Jewish. The neocons are Zionists like most Americans, they support a Jewish state in Palestine. They are not part of the Jewish movement to move to Palestine or current day Israel and inhabit it. Since neocons are Zionists like most Americans, that fact that they are Jewish does not matter at all. It is a spurious correlation that based on your prejudice you claim has some meaning. But it doesn’t. Their type of Zionist ideology has no connection to their neocon beliefs. If your assertion were true, then many Likudniks would be neocons, but they just are not.

As for Communism, many communist Jews, were Zionists. My grandfather was one. The whole Kibbutz movement was communist and Zionist. It could very well be that the to ten leading communist Jews were also Zionists. Which shows again that you are attempting to use a spurious correlation to back your prejudices.

eee, your whole ‘like most americans’ lingo is a crock of sh*t. neocons are not Zionists like most Americans. they are for the most part fanatical and support a fanatical war mongering war waging foreign policy in the middle east very much unlike most americans.

ps, you’re in no position to lecture anyone here about arrogance. just take a look at this thread and tell me who is being arrogant. and what is ethnic Judaism? as in Neoconservatism …. has nothing to do with ethnic Judaism and its ideology. everyone knows there are millions of secular jews who are not religious in the least. you can’t merge ‘ethnic’ and ‘judaism’ and think that defines the range of american jews. it doesn’t. ‘jewish’ is not an ideology, neoconservatism is. and while it is not confined to any ethnicity per se as you yourself pointed out in its origin it was mostly if not all Jewish you then go on to pretend as if that is completely unimportant or relevant w/your So what? What does it prove? Nothing. AS IF we are supposed to completely ignore neoconservatism’s design is to protect israel at all cost, even at the cost of prioritizing israel over US interests, and then we are supposed to ignore the founders of this movement are jewish and the drivers of this movement are jewish. you can’t drill into our heads thread after thread the importance of a jewish homeland for jews and then divorce the connection when it comes to the ideology designed to protect that homeland.

Yes Annies, common sense. Assertions are not common sense. Your assertions such as: “AS IF we are supposed to completely ignore neoconservatism’s design is to protect israel at all cost, even at the cost of prioritizing israel over US interests” are just bogus. Of course if your premise is wrong, your conclusion will be wrong.

You are trying to make neoconservatism about Israel, but that is just not true. It is about the US and its place in the world. Just like Jews are leaders in many areas in the US, they are also leaders in this. The fact that they are Jewish is not pertinent at all.

“As for Communism, many communist Jews, were Zionists. My grandfather was one.”

Remember, many scientists averr, when they aren’t contending, or even asseverating (yes, that too!) a certain genetic component involving the metabolism of alchohol is associated with extreme dipsomaniacal tendencies. “eee”s contention that he had a grandfather does not contradict my ziocaine hypothesis, to the contrary, it strengthens it.
Not that I believe a word of that contention, of course.

eee, as far as I’m concerned, the term antisemitism should be eliminated from polite and intelligent conversation. It has become completely meaningless and arbitrary. It is predominantly used as a smear to silence any criticism of anything Jewish/Zionist/Israel. If you can’t point out that Congress is controlled by the Zionists without getting Foxman & co on your ass and suffering immediate professional and social death (Helen Thomas), free speech and freedom of the press is OVER. It’s mindless and transparent manipulation that doesn’t help anyone and only causes contempt.

That’s a great interview. If that’s an indicator of what to expect from the newly appointed staff, I look forward to the next years on this site! It’s great that Alex arranged for the interview and picked up the phone. Somehow I think this interview is more informative and constructive than, say, the 100th discussion about whether liberal Zionism is compatible with Democracy or not.

“let’s stop arguing about who’s right and who’s wrong, let’s just take sides and start fighting for the human rights and the other rights that the Palestinians should have, and let’s not allow the bully to always win. I mean, it’s time to stop the bully.

Stop defending yourself and go on the offensive right now and start popping those three bubbles.”

for those who don’t know of david emory, he did some very good work on the ‘deep politics’ of the state meme, but he now peddles what can only be described as a ‘protocols of the elders of teuton’ website, every swindle, every atrocity being attributable to the ‘fourth reich’. from his site:

COMMENT: Peo­ple around the world have much to be upset about with regard to the fail­ing global econ­omy, a cri­sis that was, to a con­sid­er­able extent, delib­er­ately pre­cip­i­tated.

Nonethe­less, the incli­na­tion to scape­goat Jews for the eco­nomic cri­sis con­tin­ues to man­i­fest itself, includ­ing at “Occupy Wall Street.”

(We should note in pass­ing that this does not appear to be a sen­ti­ment shared by the major­ity of the event’s participant’s and sup­port­ers. Note that the AFL-CIO mar­shaled its forces to pro­tect some of the pro­test­ers from the police.)

Kalle Lasn and his AdBusters Mag­a­zine have been seen as being the ini­ti­at­ing force behind “Occupy Wall Street.“

In light of the back­ground and extreme anti-Semitism of Lasn, the pos­si­bil­ity that the Under­ground Reich may be direct­ing the jus­ti­fi­able anger of cit­i­zens against the eco­nomic plun­der­ing that has beset the world against “the Jews” is not one to be too read­ily dismissed.

Lasn is of Eston­ian extrac­tion. The Baltic States have a strong fas­cist and anti-Semitic back­ground. (Lithua­nia became the world’s sec­ond fas­cist coun­try in 1925.) Notice which direc­tion his fam­ily fled as the war ground down to a conclusion!

Are Lasn’s busi­ness enter­prises under­writ­ten by the Bor­mann cap­i­tal network?

ha. a good laugh there. emory accusing lasn of racism, while suggesting that anyone of baltic ‘extraction’ is a nazi.

I offer eee as Exhibit A for an example of the decline and fall of Zionism and Israel. This is pretty much the best in the way of debate pro-Israel activists can come up with these days to defend the indefensible beliefs and policies of Likud Zionists.

eee seems not to have understood or responded reasonably to a single idea that has been directed his way. He is reading mechanically from a very brief and simple script: if you disagree with him, you’re an anti-Semite. He seems to know absolutely nothing about the complex subject of Zionism in the context of Western intellectual history.

Much of the world has simply lost all interest in communicating or interacting with people like eee — — it’s a waste of time. They are a bottomless well of needy demands and nasty accusations organized around their narrow, selfish and narcissistic ethnic nationalism. They don’t care about any people outside the cult. It’s all me, me, me, me, me, me, me and my obsessive ethnic navel-gazing all the time. The rest of the world really doesn’t exist for them — just a backdrop for their melodrama. It’s long past time for Americans to become unmired from this psychological swamp.

Sean….believe it or not I did once sort of like a zionist I debated with a lot on another site…LOL. Only one I’ve known who didn’t always yell anti semite all the time. Although he still believed anti semitism was some kind of ‘built in’ thing in many non Jews. We went round and round for a year off and on I/P and US-Isr. He was against much of what Israel was doing but would instinctively revert to defending it on the basis of historical anti semitism. He would agree with my views of the wrongness of special influence by zios on US politics and policy but then defend it on the basis of need….that the Jews needed this special consideration. He was basically a decent, intelligent person on other issues but he short circuited every time on Israel and the Jews. When it would get down to the nitty gritty and he was trapped by his own logic and attitudes on other issues that were in such obvious opposition to his attitudes on Israel he would just blank. I have thought about this guy several times during my time here and wished he were in the conversation. He blamed anti semitism for something that happened to his father in a job prospect he told me. But the difference in him as a zionist and the eees is that his attitude was more sort of ‘wary’ and sadly defensive based on what he though happened to his father, which may have been real anti semitism as he said…. whereas the zionist like the eee’s are aggressive, supremacist and entitled. I think that guy given time and the right environment to discuss it could have been brought around to put his father’s experience in the proper perspective, as bad but not the rule and certainly not any longer, and eventually into seeing the light on Israel’s zionism.
This was all before Israel’s Cast Lead and attack on Lebanon. I’d like to run into him again and see what he thinks now.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on that, and, yes, we need to be reminded that many Jewish Zionists are not neoconservatives or shriekers, and are often brilliant and rational in most aspects of their lives. But I’ve noticed that people with this profile have increasingly withdrawn from the field of battle in defending the Israeli government and have permitted irrational extremists to acquire near total control in defining what Zionism is all about.

Many of them, I suspect, are on the verge of morphing into non-Zionists or anti-Zionists. They care more about their best interests in the United States and Europe than in Israel. Which is why neocons and Likud Zionists are on a mission to stir up as much anti-Semitism as possible in the West, in an effort to force these Jews ideologically into the hardline Zionist camp and physically into Israel. What an incredible mess. Zionism, it would seem, requires a never-ending and ever-escalating torrent of anti-Semitism to survive and prosper.

We need a really smart Jewish psychoanalyst to figure out what the hell is going on here. Until he or she comes along I propose a tentative theory: some strains of the Jewish tradition are hardwired to thrive on conflict, self-ghettoization and splendid isolation. I am not entirely unsympathetic to this peculiar wiring because I can think of quite a few great creative personalities throughout history who have exhibited similar mental traits as individuals. But what happens when a large group of such people, operating as a messianic and apocalyptic cult, acquire control of a large arsenal of WMDs? They would of course be extremely dangerous.

I have posed the question of how the ill treatment of Jews during the Holocaust captured in the multi-part series by Steven Spielberg and the Shoah Foundation, Days of Remembrance, has not rang a bell about the same tactics used against the Palestinians with the Jewish people who have either survived, or have seen the series, and why they have not moved to stop the ethnic cleansing still happening in Palestine.

The young UN and its UNSCOP group in 1948 deciding to compensate the Jews with Palestinian land as a fair trade for the Jewish Holocaust, changing a 5.8% portion of the land held by Jewish folk into 55% by the UN actions, though not asking the Palestinians whose land was being taken, was a grave error based plainly on Zionists=Jews, as if all Jews are Zionists which is not so. And the methods of ethnic cleansing are standard fair whether in Cosovo, Darfur, between Hutus vs Tootsies, or even Palestine in 1948, meaning rape, murder, intimidation, torture, massacres of women, men, and children, setting fire to homes, demolitions, setting mines in place among the rubble after the demolitions which keeps the inhabitants from returning, poisoning water supplies with germs, is the standard practice of the expulsion of those whose land you covet, and take actions to forcibly evict those on that land.
Am I being anti-semitic for standing up for the ones who are bullied, and attempting to tell the truth of what actually happened? I saw a long lyrical poem by Bob Dylan on this site and on this thread about the article, and he really changes the definition of what “bully” means, and equates it to right action and how they are misnamed and justified for what they are doing as noble deeds, WOW, not unlike the revised history of Palestine by the Zionists and the world denial of the Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine in 1948, and how Israel got the land, as in the indigenous peoples just gave it up to make way for the Arab Horde armies coming after the Jews just as the Nazis did.

So, who is unreasonable here?Am I anti-semitic, anti-Israel, because the Pro-Palestinian position is having a better argument as the real truth is coming out and showing how we as a nation in the US have been lied to, the MSM has propagated a theme pushed by the Zionists as being the representatives of all Jews in Israel than the Zionists? And foreign policies towards Israel being decided by a foreign Israeli lobbying group AIPAC in the US Congress, is that a good thing for our country’s policies about other countries being influenced strongly by those very same countries?

Am I so wrong because I take the position of exposing the truth about the Palestinian/Israel conflict?

And the truth cannot stay hidden forever, it will eventually come out, as the Pentagon Papers showed about the Vietnam war, and how it started, not unlike the same tactics used by settlers who will cause destruction of their own settlements to discredit Palestinians, and blame them though they are innocent.

no, he doesn’t get paid. he just loves the thrill of playing internet masada. it’s ee against the world, chin ajut, holding out against the faceless hordes of unwashed goyim, and no chance of even getting a skinned knee. what courage. and with all due respect to annie’s comment above about eeee not being ‘ignorant’ and ‘taunting’ us, quite frankly his rhetorical skills wouldn’t measure up to those of an educated 6-year old in mid-tantrum, repeating the same erroneous argument, skipping or inserting another miscue in his ‘logical sequence’, until the adults simply throw up their hands in disgust. yes, he’s irritating, but so is my dog when it craps on the carpet.

i really have no idea if he is paid, patm. his commentary certainly follows the hasbara talking points, though. paid or not, i find him mind-numbingly stupid and morally repugnant. on the bright side, his collective body of work actually harms his case, in some instances being so callous that i wonder if he isn’t actually an anti-semitic plant.

I reckon that eee is three agents swapping shifts. I say this cuz I’ve noted that eee’s debating style has changed from the old days.

that’s a distinct possibility. ‘eeee’s’ apparent english fluency is pretty inconsistent, one day its (i’ll call ‘eeee’ an it for the sake of argument since we really don’t know what bits of its self-proclaimed identity are genuine) use of american idioms is natural, the next day its misusing the most common idiomatic expressions. but its debating tactics are pretty consistent, standard hasbarista. how’s that for the state of mind of the ‘only democracy in the middle east’? they need dada zion to tell them what to think, how to argue, etc. sounds more prussian than democratic.

For the record, in these exchanges with eee I haven’t got the feeling that there is a real person there — a single individual with an integrated personality expressing his or her carefully considered beliefs. I feel like I am engaged in a “discussion” with a group of people who are regurgitating parts of a script that they didn’t write and don’t understand.

For instance, eee suffers total mental lockdown when the subject of ethnic nationalism comes up — the topic hasn’t been covered by his script. Most of the time he keeps repeating the same simple themes without providing any creative arguments or documentation to support them.

Of course these kinds of operations, when they are promoted by governments, organizations and lobbies, almost always backfire in the long run. If you need to rely on these methods, you’ve already lost the game.

To suggest on Daily Kos that one or more of the members of Team Shalom is being paid to post by somebody is grounds for being banned from the site. I wonder why the site is so sensitive about that issue.

it’s a site rule lysia. one of many implemented early on. but it’s obvious the cornerstone dem blog is not going to be ignored. they are there to do a job. heck, i’m here to do a job and if there were 10’s of millions of dollars to pay us, if there was a fund to pay us for what we do i would apply for it. why not? so it’s completely illogical they wouldn’t get a salary.

it is also forbidden to reference them as hasbarists even tho the goi has a department of hasbara and the term means ‘to explain’ as in explain israel which is what they do. so even if you don’t say they are paid you can’t even say they are talking hasbara. i have never encountered anyone on the internet who admits they are paid to blog for israel even tho they have a well advertised well funded program.

i assume they all get a paycheck. all the regulars. they have a tough job defending apartheid and ethnic cleansing. i saw a thread yesterday..unreal. the entire thing was clogged with bs. i hadn’t been over there in a couple weeks and i couldn’t believe this stuff was still so prevalent. i’ll go find it.

check the comments. what a joke. and you know why they are doing this for this particular diary?

9:20 PM PT: Thank you all for this diary making the Rec List.

iow, anyone who comes into the diary would have to wade thru tons of crap to get to any kind of rational discussion of the article. it’s by design and they are pros. and the ‘offender’ (second comment) is now banned.

Kalle Lasn, a fellow Finno-ugrian, great to see you making an impression.

I particularly liked your comments on how to deal with the charge of antisemitism — do not crouch in a defensive position arguing that you are not an antisemite, just go on the offensive and repeat your accusations.

Shortly after 911 I raised the possibility that this action was blowback from our continuous support for Israel in her oppression of the Palestinians. A prominent professor on my campus accused me of antisemitism. I spent nearly a year simply defending myself from that charge. Pointing out that I was married to a Jew who’s family suffered terribly during the holocaust, etc. But during this time I was not raising the really important issue that it was the Israeli lobby that guided us into the Iraq war. I had been effectively side-tracked. Not going to do that again.

Lasn makes an excellent point. Keep up the attack. This means pointing out that the neocons are mostly right wing Jews. That it is legitimate to question their primary loyalty (i.e. hint, it is not the US). That Israel has become an apartheid state. We must keep on pointing out that the neocons are linked to Israel by their religion and ideology otherwise it is difficult for people to understand why they support policies that are so antithetical to America’s interests.

The Nov. 28 New Yorker issue for last week (Thanksgiving week) has a lengthy article by Mattathias Schwartz on Occupy Wall Street that contains numerous quotes from Lasn. The article’s take on Lasn and his movement is on balance a favorable one, but the article does contain this, on Lasn’s magazine Adbusters:

Lasn has long used the magazine as a platform for stridently criticizing Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians, and his most controversial moment came in 2004, when he wrote an essay on how Jews influence U.S. foreign policy. Alongside the essay was a list of powerful neoconservatives, with asterisks next to the names of those who Lasn believed were Jewish.

Hmm, 2004. Maybe Lasn had noticed what had gotten us into that war with Iraq.

Regarding “counting Jews” — many Jewish publications engage in this activity all the time. For instance, Pamela Geller’s “Atlas Shrugs” just proudly reposted an article on “The 20 Most Influential Conservative Jews in Politics”:

It should be pointed out that none of them are “conservatives” in any meaningful sense of the term — they are all neoconservatives, that is, militant Jewish nationalists and Likud Zionists. All forms of ethnic nationalism are radically at odds with traditional American conservatism — they bear much more in common with Nazism.

Neoconservatives were the prime movers behind the Iraq War and are now the prime movers behind the campaign to attack Iran. They have gone to extraordinary attention to draw attention to themselves and their agenda, and the world has taken notice. It’s too late for them now to complain about being noticed.

Mondoweiss in Your Inbox

Get Mondoweiss delivered directly to your inbox every morning and stay up to date with our independent coverage of events in the Middle East!

Support Mondoweiss’s independent journalism today

Mondoweiss brings you the news that no one else will. Your tax-deductible donation enables us to deliver information, analysis and voices stifled elsewhere. Please give now to maintain and grow this unique resource.